430EX and 580EX Help

Ok, this question has probably been addressed before. But, I have been searching for a long time and can't seem to find the exact answer I'm looking for.

Well, what I'm wanting to know is if I have a 430, and want to use it as a slave...will I be able to fire the 430 by flashing the 580 as a trigger? Let me know if I need to explain further.

Yes you can. You can turn off the master 580 and use it as a trigger only.

I'm in the same boat. As I understand, you can choose to use the 580 in conjuction with the 430, or as just a trigger. Is this correct? I'm close to purchasing a 430 as a backup, but trying to figure out how it'd actually work.

That's correct. Addition to the 580 as just the trigger, we can use them in auto ETTL mode and set the power ratio between the 2 flashes, or put them in manual mode and control the power outputs of both flashes from the master unit.

Cool, thanks Lotto!

Thanks for the help!

To be specific on how to use it as a trigger only, There is a custom function that will disable the flash from firing. setting this will allow you to use the 580 to trigger the 430EX without the 580 firing. It is also handy when you want to use the AF assist lamp for better focus without having the flash fire.

EDIT- I am wrong here, none of the other flashes will fire either with Cfn 7-1 set, as Lotto points out below.

It is Cfn 7 on the 30D.

DDCSD wrote in post #5988139
To be specific on how to use it as a trigger only, There is a custom function that will disable the flash from firing. setting this will allow you to use the 580 to trigger the 430EX without the 580 firing. It is also handy when you want to use the AF assist lamp for better focus without having the flash fire.

It is Cfn 7 on the 30D.

Ah, got it. I would have been pretty confused trying to figure this out, I'm sure.

Thanks!

DDCSD wrote in post #5988139
To be specific on how to use it as a trigger only, There is a custom function that will disable the flash from firing. setting this will allow you to use the 580 to trigger the 430EX without the 580 firing. It is also handy when you want to use the AF assist lamp for better focus without having the flash fire.

It is Cfn 7 on the 30D.

That's not exactly how disabling the master work. If CFn7 is turn off, the master will not fire, neither will the slaves.

There are few button pressing on the the master 580 to get to the setting which turn off the master from firing during the actual exposure, but 580 still fires the preflesh and command flash, and the slave flash needs to see the command flash to be triggered.

deletedpenguin wrote in post #5992124
Ah, got it. I would have been pretty confused trying to figure this out, I'm sure.

Thanks!

Lotto wrote in post #5992171
That's not exactly how disabling the master work. If CFn7 is turn off, the master will not fire, neither will the slaves.

There are few button pressing on the the master 580 to get to the setting which turn off the master from firing during the actual exposure, but 580 still fires the preflesh and command flash, and the slave flash needs to see the command flash to be triggered.

Well, once again I prove to be wrong. I guess that is what I get for assuming common sense was used in the design of Canon flash systems. Jut tried it for the first time and of course nothing will fire.

Thanks for the clarification Lotto.

DDCSD wrote in post #5992860
Well, once again I prove to be wrong. I guess that is what I get for assuming common sense was used in the design of Canon flash systems. Jut tried it for the first time and of course nothing will fire.

Thanks for the clarification Lotto.

But isn't it common sense that if you turn the flash off, that none of the flash should fire, whether it be a master or a slave? Now, if one of the flashes did fire even if the custom function was set for the flashes not to fire, then that would not be common sense.

PacAce wrote in post #5992930
But isn't it common sense that if you turn the flash off, that none of the flash should fire, whether it be a master or a slave? Now, if one of the flashes did fire even if the custom function was set for the flashes not to fire, then that would not be common sense.

I do realize that in very simplistic theory, yes, when you set it to "does not fire", it shouldn't fire, but in real world application it makes no sense in a master/slave configuration.

I would think that the Cfn would apply only to the flash mounted on the hotshoe. If I didn't want my slaves to fire, I would simply take my hotshoe mounted flash off of master. Not sure why you would want to use the AF assist lamp only while having a bunch of slaves turned on.

I see absolutely no use in having a master/slave setup in which none of the flashes will fire. Not fire the hotshoe flash while still firing the slaves, yes. Not firing anything at all....

DDCSD wrote in post #5993015
I do realize that in very simplistic theory, yes, when you set it to "does not fire", it shouldn't fire, but in real world application it makes no sense in a master/slave configuration.

I would think that the Cfn would apply only to the flash mounted on the hotshoe. If I didn't want my slaves to fire, I would simply take my hotshoe mounted flash off of master. Not sure why you would want to use the AF assist lamp only while having a bunch of slaves turned on.

I see absolutely no use in having a master/slave setup in which none of the flashes will fire. Not fire the hotshoe flash while still firing the slaves, yes. Not firing anything at all....

When you take into consideration that the flash already has a function that allows you to turn off the master flash without affecting the slaves and it can be done much more quickly than fiddling with the custom function, then the way Canon currently has it set up to turn off all flashes when the custom function is set up that way makes perfect sense to me. Maybe it's just me but that really sounds like common sense to me.